


Dents and Scratches

by whichstiel



Series: Season 12 Codas [16]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: British Men of Letters, Episode Tag, Heaven, Impala, M/M, Season/Series 12, episode coda, fixing up the impala, somewhere between heaven and hell, spn 12x15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 01:46:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10232936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichstiel/pseuds/whichstiel
Summary: If Dean had ten bucks for every time Cas had called to share news of a vague lead on Kline, followed by an abrupt hang-up, Dean would be rolling around in silk and fancy ass scotch by now.





	

**BUNKER**

Mick doesn't have a case for them yet – not exactly. After Sam hangs up the phone he tells Dean about a case another hunter is working on in Arizona: murders preceded by strobing lavender light. The smell of marshmallows is said to pervade the air for days following each bloody murder, overpowering even the spicy evergreen in the pinyon-juniper hills. Sam promises to check the lore in the bunker to see if it's a beast local to America – something the American Men of Letters never thought to pass along to the more insular British chapter. Sam heads straight for the bookshelves, lifting his brows at Dean. “You want in on this?” His question, though innocuous, sounds uncertain, worried.

 _Good_ , Dean thinks. Sam kept his involvement with the British Men of Letters quiet for two solid weeks. Dean will be there on the hunts to back Sam up. He'll follow orders (to a certain extent) even though he hasn't had to do that since his dad died. But he'll be found at the bottom of a pond before he lets himself become just another research monkey for them. “Nah, gotta finish fixing up Baby.” The guilty look that settles on Sam's face makes Dean feel marginally better.

Dean heads out to the garage and flips on the lights. The white-gold lighting makes everything gleam and for a moment Dean leans against the doorframe and drinks in the sheen on the cars. He slowly inhales the soothing scent of auto wax and oil and feels his shoulders begin to unknot. It gets cold in there this time of year so he pulls out a space heater, dragging it to the front of the Impala. Its orange extension cord winds like a tropical snake across the garage.

He stands in front of Baby, hands shoved in pockets, and assesses the work to be done. He fixed the windshields before they even headed back west. There's nothing like spiderwebbed windows to attract cops. But Baby's hood is still dented and long scratches trail from the hood all the way over the roof and back to the trunk. She'll need the dents out first, followed by sanding and repainting. Then he'll have to give her a thorough cleaning inside. He'd tasked Sam with cleaning out all the glass and blood. But hellhounds are invisible to the human eye. There's probably invisible hellhound fur stuck to his seats. _Gross_. He should have made Sam wear the glasses when he cleaned her.

Dean steps forward and runs a finger along the nearest jagged scratch in the hood. He shudders. _Hell hounds_.

Snatching back his hand, he shoves it in his pocket, fingertips brushing his cell phone. After nearly a minute of standing there, fingers half curled around his phone, he pulls it out and thumbs it on. He should tell Cas what they're up to, right? Cas should know they're working with the British Men of Letters now – he and Sam. He doesn't expect Cas will want to join them. He's been out hunting Kelly Kline for months now. He didn't even head home to the bunker after he'd nearly died in the lake house case. He just hit the road again. Alone. So, Cas is busy.

Then again, it feels like a good thing that Cas is busy. Cas might be safer away from the bunker – away from the Men of Letters. Dean suspects they would be more interested in studying Cas – an actual angel – than working with him. He shakes his head, cursing his shit luck which means that Cas might be more protected out in the field with a prince of Hell on the loose than he would be at home with Dean. He finally takes a picture of Baby's scratched hood and sends it to Cas with a short message.

> **Dean:** Tracked down a hellhound this week. Good times.

Dean props open the hood. The hound left a series of medium to small crevices, concentrated in the middle of the hood where Sam says it initially landed before springing onto the roof. Dean can pop these back into shape with some old fashioned leverage and elbow grease. He connects a chain from the chassis to the hood's edge, hooking it so that it's taut. Then he dangles a second chain from the hood, works a metal bar through one of the holes, and proceeds to pop Baby's hood flat inch by careful inch. He's done this so many times over the years that he could do it in his sleep.

So his mind wanders, circling around Sam, Mary, the Men of Letters. Dean has a sick feeling in his gut – entirely too familiar – that the world is getting ready to kick his ass. He wasn't lying to Sam. He understands why Sam joined the team. Dean didn't spend a lot of time at the Men of Letters compound but what he saw was impressive: computers, sophisticated surveillance tech, and an astonishing amount of firepower. The thought of having those kind of resources – what they could do with that – sends a thrill up even his spine.

Dean tamps down on his own weapons lust. If his life has taught him anything it's that mostly everything good turns out to be complete crap. At least this way he'll be close by to protect the people he cares about when it goes south.

Well, he'll be close to most of the people he cares about. Cas is still on his own hunt and Dean circles back to his last conversation with him. The brief update about Kline wasn't unusual. Cas is just shy of being completely uncommunicative on the phone. If Dean had ten bucks for every time Cas had called to share news of a vague lead on Kline, followed by an abrupt hang-up, Dean would be rolling around in silk and fancy ass scotch by now. No, what worries Dean is how calm Cas had sounded on the phone. Over the past several months he'd sounded increasingly frustrated, disheartened. For Cas to suddenly sound calm but provide no details? Well, it gnaws at Dean. He's donned a mask too many times himself to not recognize the same in the people closest to him.

He texts Cas again with two pictures of the now dent-free hood and roof with the caption, “getting there.” Dean rubs his thumb along the home button on his phone, staring at the string of mostly one sided messaging. God, he misses Cas. His absence has settled into a permanent, hollow ache under Dean's ribs. His fingers itch to type something, anything, just to get a response. _Buddy, come home. We miss you. I need you. Don't make me do this without you._

Cas has been more reserved than usual for months, ever since the Lucifer search turned into an endlessly futile quest for his offspring. But after his miraculous recovery from Ramiel's spear Cas had turned positively cold. There are three words Dean thinks might be enough to melt their way through. Three words, but Dean is too chickenshit, too just plain _shit_ , to say them.

Dean sighs finally, then shoves the phone back into his pocket. He gets to work on the scratches and the cracked edges the dents left behind. He works on them until his arms and back ache and his eyes blur, until he's too tired to think anymore.

 

**HEAVEN**

Castiel's phone sits heavy in his breast pocket. It's useless in the firmament of Heaven. The angels likely could set up a relay for cellular signals from Earth, similar to what Crowley has established in Hell. Castiel knows even suggesting such a thing is grounds for extermination by his brethren so he doesn't bring it up.

There are so many sins an angel can commit and obliteration is punishment for all of them.

_I love you. I love all of you._

There are so many sins an angel can commit.

Something in the vicinity of his core aches. Castiel identifies it as an emotion – sorrow, perhaps - tries to dissipate it, and when that fails he simply boxes it up for later. He vacillates between wishing he had told Dean more in their most recent phone conversation and feeling grateful that the Winchesters, at least, are far out of Heaven's reach at the moment.

He misses Dean. Sam. Even Mary with her sharp stares and night-dark smiles. Castiel is careful not to speak of them to Kelvin as they walk together to meet Joshua. The Winchesters need to stay off of Heaven's radar. With God gone and Lucifer locked away the lesser angels are steering their own ship again. He fears it would take very little for them to decide the Winchesters are too troublesome to keep around.

But Castiel can't tear himself to pieces over half worries right now. He's in Heaven. These days it's enemy territory for him. He longs for Earth. He longs for-- He shakes his head and stifles a sigh. When did Heaven begin to feel so claustrophobic?

Of course, as a multi-dimensional expanse Heaven is enormous. Bigger than a thousand, a million planets. And through it all, like an artery straight through the body, runs the Axis Mundi. Right now it's a shaded forest path lined with ancient trees and older shadows. Heaven has always been both real and not real, constantly vibrating between a state of matter and energy. Castiel relishes the crunch of the pea gravel underfoot. At the same time he feels his essence splitting into fine threads and slipping into fractals. And he can also hear his and Kelvin's sensible shoes clacking against the crisp white hallways most angels prefer to see.

Every tree is a doorway; some open and close in the distance as angels go about their business, flashes of light the only indication of life. Kelvin walks beside him, his smugness palpable. They pause at a great red oak as wide as ten men. Kelvin reaches out. Knocks.

The door opens and light pours out, sun-bright. Castiel squints, throws up a hand against the glow. “Joshua?” he asks. Then he steps inside, the door closes behind him, and the forest is still once more.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/whichstiel) and [Tumblr](http://whichstiel.tumblr.com/) @ whichstiel. You may also like the Supernatural recap and gif blog I co-write/curate, [Shirtless Sammy](https://shirtlesssammy.tumblr.com/).


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